Free Republic

KYIV, Ukraine—It was a scorching summer day in 2014 when Artem Kravchenko and hundreds of other Ukrainian soldiers put their trust in a Russian promise not to open fire and retreated in a column from the surrounded city of Ilovaisk. By the end of the day, Kravchenko found himself lying in a ditch surrounded by dead comrades after Russian forces shot up the column. With three Russian bullets in his body, he had to drink his own urine to survive. “They started shooting from the right, so we went to the left and met another ambush there,” said Kravchenko, who...

The emergency calls became increasingly desperate. “When are you coming? It’s already burning and there are people inside,” a woman told the fire brigade dispatcher. Minutes later, callers started describing how people were jumping from the upper floors. “Have you lost your minds?” one man asked, his voice breaking. “There are women and children in the building!” another man yelled. In one of the most deadly episodes in Ukraine’s turbulent 2014 power transition, 48 people were killed and hundreds injured on 2 May last year in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Street battles culminated in a fatal fire at...